A new outlook on the millennial generation doesn’t condemn them to a reputation of shirking of socialist agitation.
David Brooks, in his New York Times column, declares millennials the “self-reliant generation.”
Coming from Brooks, the token conservative for the Times, the label isn’t all praise. Millennials have become self-reliant, not from a desire for freedom and radical experimentation, but from a reaction to their lived experiences and the lack of an alternative. As such, “self-reliant” is descriptive as much as a forewarning.
“If you look at how millennials actually live, you certainly don’t see a progressive counterculture,” Brooks writes. “In fact, you see what you’d expect from a generation that lived through a financial crisis, family instability and political dysfunction. You see an abstract celebration of creative transformation but a concrete hunger for order, security and stability.”
Self-reliance has been forced on them. They “take a loosely networked individualism as the normal order of the universe.”
Those conditions do not make a Democratic constituency, regardless of the widely held belief that the Republican Party is doomed to obscurity through changing demographics.
“The general impression one gets is of a generation that is stressed, energetic, creative, skeptical and in the middle of redefining, and thinning out, the nature of affiliation …Their only alternative, which is their genius, is to try to fix their lives themselves, through technology and new forms of social interaction, rather than mass movements,” Brooks writes.
Millennials as creative and entrepreneurial due to necessity isn’t a new theme. The conservative spin on it is. The maturation of millennials during economic crisis and change encouraged the development of specific skills and a skepticism toward the world around them. That mindset, however, can’t solidify as the new normal.
“There will be some giant cultural explosion down the road. You just can’t be as detached from solid supporting structures as millennials now are and lead a happy middle-aged life. Something is going to change,” Brooks writes.
What form that change will take is unclear. That gives millennials some overlap with baby boomers, who defined angst during the 1960s, and generation X, who defined cynicism. It’s also an awkward position, as millennials protest racism, debt, and other issues they face, but overlook the large wealth transfers that favor baby boomers.
Self-reliance, experimentation, and a belief that they can fix problems themselves are great traits for millennials. Not to mention an economy that still lags and concerns over future innovation are great. The aversion to organized religion, tradition, and mainstream forms of community, however, present a larger problem ahead. Balancing individualism and self-reliance with community and tradition could be more difficult for millennials.
